by Angela Denker

I’m writing this article about balance at 7 p.m. on a Friday. The dishes are washed, the laundry is done, and my two boys, age 7 and 4, are downstairs playing basketball in the basement with their dad.

I’m not home anymore, though. Every time I sat down to write there, I got distracted by more work to do.

Still dressed in leggings, a workout top and glasses in lieu of mascara, I change my location to a coffee shop. Finally, I can embrace anonymity and relative quiet. During a busy week just 12 days before Christmas, I’ve been available to children, church, family and side work.

A better woman than me would write this article about vocation and balance about how her morning routine of meditation, yoga and matcha tea helps her face the world with a sense of perfect balance and alignment envied by all.

As for me, I generally drag myself out of bed when I hear the pitter-patter of little boys’ feet, sprinting toward my door.

“MOM! I’M HUNGRY!”

Balance, in my past seven years as a pastor and a mother, has always seemed to me to be both elusive and unrealistic. After all, balance assumes that the items you have to balance can all fit together on a scale, in a manageable amount, that can be moved back and forth in perfect harmony.

Balance, it seems to me, assumes that you can always hold a portion of yourself in reserve–that you can divide your identity into equal and piecemeal parts. Right now, I am 65 percent pastor and 35 percent mother.

Right now, I am 99 percent pastor and 1 percent mother.

Somehow I have to fit writer and wife and woman and, let’s be honest, human being who needs to eat and sleep and be clothed in there somewhere, too.

Maybe what modern women need most today then is not balance at all, but rather permission to be occasionally unbalanced.

This New Year, the 20th anniversary of the New Millennium, in this article I want to give you that gift.

YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO BE UNBALANCED.

That’s exactly what Jesus asked of those who would follow him: to deny all else, even family, and take up your cross. To go to unfamiliar places, to face ridicule and persecution, for the sake of a mission of love, forgiveness, justice and reconciliation.

Green Bay Packers coaching great Vince Lombardi said it this way: “Success demands singleness of purpose,” which is fine if you’re a White American man in the 1950s, whose wife does your laundry and makes your bed and irons your shirts.

For modern women and moms, singleness of purpose looks different.

I contend that singleness of purpose for women today looks like a purposeful lack of balance.

It looks like laundry stacked high when you’re finishing up a big project at work. It looks like squatting on the floor next to your 4-year-old to build a puzzle when you’re on deadline for work. It looks like meeting up with friends even though you have projects to do at home. It looks like racing to the hospital, to be with church members and loved ones, in spite of everything and everyone else who needs you.

It looks like stepping outside into the bliss of crisp air and a walk alone.

It looks like phone calls to friends who you haven’t seen in years.

It looks like a cup of chai tea, a laptop, a Friday night in leggings on a December night 12 days before Christmas–and words that give permission to live.

Questions to ask yourself to create a perfect, balanced, unbalanced, purposeful life:

1. Put yourself on your list of priorities: What do you want and need as a human being?

2. Where is God calling you to put your energy? How does that differ from the pressures of the world and modern culture?

3. Who can you give permission to be unbalanced this year? How can you affirm others in a life that is purposeful, mission-centered, and occasionally unbalanced?

Closing prayer

Lord Jesus, thank you for giving me permission to let go of the illusion of a balanced life and instead lean into being present with the ones I love. This year, give me a sense of purpose in my vocations as a leader, a mother and a child of God. Guide me to accept and love myself, even when I am unbalanced. In Jesus’ name, I pray, Amen.


 

The Rev. Angela Denker is an ELCA Lutheran pastor and veteran journalist. Her first book, Red State Christians, was the 2019 Silver Foreword Indies award-winner for political and social sciences. She is a columnist for the Minnesota Star Tribune and has written for many publications, including Sports Illustrated, the Washington Post, and FORTUNE magazine, and has appeared on CNN, BBC, SkyNews, and NPR to share her research on politics and Christian Nationalism in the U.S. Pastor Angela lives with her husband, Ben, and two sons in Minneapolis, where she is a sought-after speaker on Christian Nationalism and its theological and cultural roots. She also serves Lake Nokomis Lutheran Church in Minneapolis as Pastor of Visitation and Public Theology. Pastor Angela’s new book, Disciples of White Jesus: The Radicalization of American Boyhood, will be released on March 25, 2025.  Pre-Order Disciples of White Jesus Now! Order on Bookshop Barnes & Noble Comma (Minneapolis) You can read more of her work on Christian Nationalism, American culture, social issues, journalism, and parenting on her Substack, I’m Listening.

You can read other articles in Boldcafe by Angela Denker here.

This article first appeared in the January 2020 issue of Boldcafe.